The finance website said that Gilbert is “bringing a private sector playbook to the task of municipal renewal at a time many cities are still struggling with the fallout from the financial crisis.”

Referring to Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate services, the article notes that Gilbert has more than 2 million square feet in downtown Detroit buildings. One of the companies that falls under Gilbert's Rock Ventures umbrella, Rock Connections, recently moved 115 employees from Southfield to the Bedrock-owned Chase Tower in downtown Detroit.

Take it away, Marketwatch:

Gilbert says he’s boosting Detroit’s transition from the “muscle economy” of its manufacturing heyday to today’s “brain economy.” “In three, four, five years, we would hope that Detroit would be looked on as a miracle turnaround,” says Gilbert, a third-generation Motor City native.

Interestingly, Wayne State University urban planning professor Avis C. Vidal tells Marketwatch that Gilbert’s strategy is unlikely to work in most cities, as few if any other metropolises have the rock-bottom real estate prices that Detroit does.